Recount the Iowa Caucus!

The caucus is getting maligned plenty from Team Clinton. (0.00 / 0)

First, there was the Iowa concession speech, which made pointed references to people who can't caucus because of their jobs.

Then this:

"Iowa is so small, it's like a mayor's race in a medium-sized city."

-- Sen. Hillary Clinton's press secretary Jay Carson, quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

And now, lowering expectations for Nevada in case of defeat:

Said Clinton: "You have a limited period of time on one day to have your voices heard. That is troubling to me. You know in a situation of a caucus, people who work during that time -- they're disenfranchised. People who can't be in the state or who are in the military, like the son of the woman who was here who is serving in the Air Force, they cannot be present."

Yet not so troubling to her that a teacher union surrogate is working to block the Obama-backing union members from participating.

It almost - almost - makes me want to defend the caucus system.

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by: Dean Barker @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 17:17:02 PM CST

Nooks and crannies (0.00 / 0)

That is inside baseball for ya.

Use one constituency to fight another.

Local against local. Pure Clinton!

www.KusterforCongress.com  

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 17:21:54 PM CST

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Carson's statement didn't malign caucuses. (0.00 / 0)

It maligned Iowa as Podunk.

And Iowa's a lot bigger than us.

We're a city councilman race in a small city.

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by: elwood @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 17:22:55 PM CST

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It shouldn't make you want to defend the caucus system (0.00 / 0)

It should make you hate it even more because it lends itself to this crap...and because it's groupthink mob-rule instead of an election.

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 19:21:48 PM CST

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I've always figured (0.00 / 0)

maybe completely incorrectly, that New Hampshire is responsible for the Iowa caucus.

We had already made it clear - perhaps not in law, though - that we were going to be The First Primary and would move earlier if needed, when Iowa began running the thing.

Iowa adopted a bizarre different delegate selection plan. Before anyone here even understood how it worked, to determine whether it was similar enough, they had their own Institution.

But that's only my assumption. We've got plenty of folks here who can correct it.

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by: elwood @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 17:20:58 PM CST

Not a fan (0.00 / 0)

of the caucus system, I got to witness it first hand on the 3rd. I am glad we have a ballot system, where you only get one chance to vote.

I was at a ward in Waverly where Obama had maybe a 40 people advantage over Clinton, and you needed 17 to be viable. I was shocked to see a woman from the Clinton camp walk over to Edwards after the ward leader notified that Edwards needed only one more person to be viable. The woman was like "oh I'll go help Edwards", this turned me off to the caucus system, people that go don't stick to their beliefs.

And people don't honor deals that are made between campaings, saw that happen too with the supposed Obama/Richardson deal.

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by: sdoyle @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 17:24:10 PM CST

I could go for an instant runoff type system, or a ranked ballot, or some such system other than winner-take-all (0.00 / 0)

Such a system would allow people to vote for their true preferences as opposed to worrying about "wasting" their votes.

However, all voting should be done by secret ballot, there should be ample time to vote, no pressure on the voter, and the raw support each candidate receives in the each round must be counted and publicized.

Caucuses are arcane and need to go.  However, Iowa is in a bind because if they replaced their caucus system with a real election, New Hampshire would be forced to leapfrog them.

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 19:39:00 PM CST

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True (4.00 / 1)

Several other problems occur, no absentee, so people who work, are sick, serve in the military can't vote. As much as I am in favor of Iowa having one of the First in the nation slots, they should come up with a new caucus system, imo.

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by: sdoyle @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 19:58:52 PM CST

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Maybe IA could (0.00 / 0)

do an IRV primary (respects the spirit of the caucus)... If we keep the winner take all would that be a significant enough difference?

Hope > Fear



Create a free Blue Hampshire account and join the conversation.

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by: Mike Hoefer @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 19:59:24 PM CST

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Caucus (4.00 / 1)

The Democratic Caucus is really a meeting of local Democrats, all it would take really is for someone in that group to put forth a motion. It could be changed in theory but I doubt it every will, if people thought NH is stubborn, you haven't been to Iowa recently.

If someone in the Iowa delegation went to their state convention and put forth the motion to change to a ballot system, where absentees can vote, and you could vote all day it could be done, but it won't happen.

Iowa Picks Corn, NH Picks Presidents. Does have some truth, as the caucus system discriminates against people who cannot make the meeting, and it only lasts an hour, if you are late you can't vote, if you leave before the caucus you can't come back in to vote.

Iowa picks the candidate that has the most people show up for an hour (And the Obama campaign was on top of their game, they had a great plan, I went to a rally the night before and at the end of his speech he took out a sheet of paper and told supporters to pick one up, it had two names of registered democratic caucus goers, phone numbers and addresses so they could call them and pick them up and bring them to caucus), NH picks the candidate they all want, for more than an hour (Clinton camp knew how to turn out the vote, and I applaud them for it, would be interesting to know how many absentee votes were cast for Clinton).

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by: sdoyle @ Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 20:34:14 PM CST

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"Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks Presidents" <--love it (0.00 / 0)

And generally I support the theory that Iowa's relevance is in the fact that it leads into New Hampshire, but it got WAY more attention from all the campaigns and media than we did this year, and that's wrong.

I'm also disappointed that, IMHO, Iowa picked a better winner than New Hampshire did, and that NH was perceived as rejecting Obama, instead of delivering him a far better result than 99% of the polls predicted, which is what really happened.

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 00:39:21 AM CST

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Actually I believe in the 70s (0.00 / 0)

The national parties enforced stricter rules on the caucuses, and the resulting cost and other factors caused many states to move to primaries.

So we could do it again -- say, for example, that there has to be an auditable trail.

Does anybody know how many states still use caucuses? A dozen or so?

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 09:38:42 AM CST

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List (4.00 / 3)

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/l...

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by: sdoyle @ Sun Jan 13, 2008 at 11:02:58 AM CST

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